26 March, 2010

I'm back from Taiwan with lots to report, enough that I'll split it into two posts. We had an extremely productive trip, dozens of meetings with manufacturers at the show and a plethora of new products. After the show we took the high speed train to central Taiwan and visited 11 factories.

Among the new products and projects:

The final cold forge tooling for the Grand Cru 50.4bcd crank is now being made and we should have cranks in stock around July. We've made some small changes to the chain rings; they'll incorporate the latest "Shimano-style" tooth profiles, ramps, and pins, making shifting performance far superior to the TA and other classic cranks.

We've also decided to develop a similar 110bcd Grand Cru crank. We hope to have them in production in a month or so.

The less expensive VO cranks are now in production and should arrive in about 2-3 months.

We'll soon have new high flange Maxi-Orange hubs in seven speed freewheel, fixie and cassette versions. The only thing left to do is find the very best Japanese stainless steel sealed bearings to use in them. Or are ceramic bearings worth the extra cost?

We may also have new Grand Cru high-low hubs, still working on specs. Again, are ceramic bearing worth an extra $30-$50.

A new VO rim is designed and we'll have prototypes soon. It'll be a very high quality medium width triple box section that looks like the old Super Champion but is much stronger.

We'll soon have wing nuts for track and road hubs.

The Grand Cru titanium rail saddle is ready for production. It's like the ultimate VO model 3 or Brooks B-17.

More widths of VO alloy hammered fenders are coming. Should we do 37mm or 55mm first?

Three new stems are on the way.

Two inexpensive stainless steel touring racks should arrive in 2-3 months. They are our first Dajia Cycle Works products.

Chris, NO to the ceramic bearings.Paul, A high-low hub is a rear hubwith a low flange on the left sideand a high flange on the right whichhelps compensate for the unequalspoke tension in a dished wheel.

i own 3 sets of TA cranks set up 46/26. they all shift really freaking well, with friction of course, and an 8spd chain. on the other hand, i was working on a customer's carbon time trial bike with non-shimano 'shimano style' ramps and pins. terrible shifting. huge headache. after about 2 month of trying to make it work, we just had to switch to dura ace rings.

in my opinion, ramps and pins have their place. that place isnt on a 46/30 crank combo. what if we want to run different sized inner rings? will the ramps line up? will they inhibit shifting instead? sounds dubious!

I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of these racks. Are these Dajia racks front or back?

From the "Interbike" show last year, October 1st blog entry http://velo-orange.blogspot.com/2009/10/interbike-report.html : Was this rack ever carried in the store? I think that's a nice looking rack but not sure if it was ever in the store or what the requirements would be to fit a brake. Someone should have mentioned this one before you went over seas. It looks handy.

Dear Everyone:I'm going to go with the majority (thus far) opinion here and suggest steel ball bearings, not ceramic. After all, if Lennerd Zinn over at velonews.com, a hot-bed of high tech racing and racing-inspired bike stuff, doesn't see what the point in ceramic bearings is for non-pro racers, than I don't see it either.a

Ceramic bearings are, from what I've been able to figger, not worth the extra cost for non-racing applications.

Cartridge bearing most definitely are worth it! At least for hubs and BBs. Even great ones are still cheap.

My Miche cartridge bearing hubs and $24 Miche cartridge bearing BB are going strong after 20,000 rough miles, and should last a good bit longer. If I want to replace the bearings it will take an hour of my time and less than 20 bucks. A great technology that has undergone constant improvement for well over half a century.

What seems to have possibly overlooked here in the ceramic bearing hoopla is Chris saying that there is going to be a freewheel version of the Maxi-Orange hub.

Hats off to VO on this - this is hardcore keeper of the flame stuff.

Ceramic bearings - nice if you can get them, they certainly don't hurt anything. Plus, given the expected lifespan of hubs (decade(s)?) what's $50. OTOH, you could probably skip them, hard to see anyone saying,"Well, I would have bought those coolio VO Maxi-Orange hubs had they had ceramic bearings", including me.

The range of great product from VO continues to amaze... and to grow. Chris, any chance for a 94mm BCD crank in the future? This is the ring pattern pioneered by SunTour as "Microdrive", also adopted by Shimano. It fits rings down to 29 teeth. There are many options in 110mm BCD double cranks on the market now, but a nice looking 94mm offering would be a unique offering. 94mm rinsg are still available from TA and other sources.

...and I presume y'all know that Phil Wood passed away very recently, at age 84? He had sold the company about twenty years ago, so he did get to enjoy the last twenty years of his life, and was quite busy, including teaching Calculus, among several other things. Nerd Engineers rule!

If your just going to insert sealed bearings into a "Maxi-Orange" hub you should just leave out the Maxi, What makes Maxi-Car hubs so incredible is their elaborate bearing system, one that would (and some still do) outlast any sealed bearing hub on the market today. Anyhow I'm sure it would cost way too much money to replicate their old bearing system, so at least be sure to include button hole pattern for ease of spoke replacement.

Re: Ceramic bearings. So long as the cartridge bearing size is standard and readily available in both normal and ceramic variants, spec them with normal, and if the end user wants to go with ceramic, they can upgrade themselves.

Maxi-Orange Hubs sound wonderful. Particularly a direct competitor to Phil's dishless 135mm freewheel hub which I have yet to afford. The key word is Dishless. Also, yes, to incorporate the keyhole design will be to trump Phil, not to mention price. Good cartridge bearings, easily replaceable will be sufficient. I've said this before, and I repeat it. To add a grease fitting to allow convenient greasing would guarantee bearing life against moisture that does make it past those seals.

Someone please refresh my memory on what made the MaxiCar bearing system unique.

Oh, I remember this idea, now. Making a dishless cassette hub. The idea is that you would use the largest seven cogs of an eight speed cassette. The Freehub itself would be narrower to allow this. You can then have a dishless wheel without being limited to the two IRD supplied freewheel options. You would also have wider parts availability. What do you think?

I was very surprised VO is considering modern ramps and pins on their rings. I'm 100% in agreement with Johnson on this one. Cyclists have been shifting without such marketing gimmicks for over 50 years without any problems. If you're having trouble shifting a front derailleur, I doubt a ramp on the chainring will miraculously solve the problem.

The interest in seven speeds or less is that it shifts significantly easier with friction shifting. Eight speeds isn't bad, but nine is fickle. The other possible advantage as seen with the 135mm Phil Freewheel hub is that you can have a dishless rear wheel that is amazingly strong.

Steel bearings! Cheap, available everywhere on the planet, and they last a long time. Ceramics seem out of sync with the rest of V-O offerings. The large cost difference results in a tiny (1 watt?) performance increase and they are an example of yet another fad in the cycling industry with an exceedingly poor cost/benefit ration.

+1 on a Campy-bodied Maxi-Orange hub, and 8 speeds if at all possible in both Shimano and Campy flavors. If someone wants a 7, couldn't they just spacer over a 7-cog cassette? (I use friction on 8 and do just fine.)

I believe seven and eight are actually the same spacing(?). The advantage of the seven speed is you have like a 95% dishless hub. A six speed allows for 100% with 135mm axle length.

I do pretty well with the eight speed, but wouldn't mind a little better. Sometimes it's a little fickle. Though I've been lead to believe seven and eight have the same spacing, my experience with seven speed has been even better, though not as "graceful". nine speed was horrible. And way more gears than ever needed.